Prospective secondary mathematics teachers in Australia are typically taught by mathematics educators and mathematicians who work in different faculties and seldom collaborate--a situation that can lead to conflicting views about how to teach mathematics. This paper reports on findings from semi-structured interviews with three mathematics teacher…

In this article, Merrilyn Goos looks at beliefs about the nature of mathematics and perceptions of mathematics teachers in examining "why teachers matter." It is difficult for researchers to specify exactly how different types of teaching and teacher qualities affect student achievement because this would require untangling the…

This article examines possibilities for using Valsiner's zone theory to understand identity formation of mathematics teachers and mathematics teacher educators. We situate our analysis within a sociological frame for identity research, in which identity is interpreted as an action rather than an acquisition. Valsiner's theoretical approach is…

Secondary mathematics pre-service teachers often have different experiences of mathematics and its teaching and learning during their initial teacher education. This paper documents the beliefs about mathematics, its teaching, and its learning, of mathematicians and mathematics educators who teach secondary mathematics pre-service teachers. The…

The pre-service teacher followed in this paper aimed to act as an agent of change during a time of reform in Irish secondary mathematics education. A teacher-researcher led action research project was conducted to depict the reality of the situation regarding the implementation of mathematical problem solving from a variety of perspectives-namely…

While measures of research quality are widely accepted in the education research community, there may be less agreement on what constitutes evidence of impact and on where to look for it. The aims of this symposium are to consider some key issues in undertaking the Australian government's national assessment of research engagement and impact, and…

Collaboration between mathematicians and mathematics educators may provide a means of improving the quality of pre-service teacher education for prospective teachers of mathematics. Some preliminary findings of a project that investigates this type of interdisciplinary collaboration, both within and across institutions, are reported on in this…

This article discusses key issues surrounding the nature and development of professional knowledge for effective teaching of mathematics, especially at the secondary school level. In the education research community it is generally accepted that teachers need more than knowledge of the content they will teach; an additional construct, pedagogical…

Set amidst the backdrop of concerns related to the entry of students to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers, this study seeks to understand the Professional STEM Identity status of STEM undergraduate students and STEM professionals. This study utilizes a cross-sectional research design to compare participant scores in…

This paper reports on the knowledge for teaching mathematics of 294 pre-service primary teachers from seven Australian universities participating in a project aimed at establishing a culture of evidence-based improvement of teacher education. The project was funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council. Rasch measurement techniques were…

This paper reports on a project that aims to foster interdisciplinary collaboration between mathematicians and mathematics educators in pre-service teacher education. The project involves 23 investigators from six universities. Interviews were conducted with selected project participants to identify conditions that enable or hinder collaboration,…

This paper addresses the question of whether peer collaboration affects students' performance of regression modelling tasks, an experimental study consisting of a test was conducted in a computing laboratory. Collaborating groups of students were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: pre-task discussion (i.e., group members…

Application of mathematical and statistical thinking and reasoning, typically referred to as quantitative skills, is essential for university bioscience students. First, this study developed an assessment task intended to gauge graduating students' quantitative skills. The Quantitative Skills Assessment of Science Students (QSASS) was the result,…

In the biosciences, quantitative skills are an essential graduate learning outcome. Efforts to evidence student attainment at the whole of degree programme level are rare and making sense of such data is complex. We draw on assessment theories from Sadler (evaluative expertise) and Boud (sustainable assessment) to interpret final-year bioscience…

In this study, the Science Student Skills Inventory was used to gain understanding of student perceptions about their quantitative skills and compare perceptions of cohorts graduating before and after the implementation of a new science curriculum intent on developing quantitative skills. The study involved 600 responses from final-year…